Sudden flash floods wrought havoc in northern Nepal on Wednesday, washing away vehicles, damaging homes, roads and critical infrastructure near the Tibetan border. Authorities launched rescue and relief operations after floodwaters surged through parts of Rasuwa district, triggering evacuations along riverbanks. The disaster has disrupted transport links, electricity supply and raised fears of casualties as emergency teams race to assess the damage. The cause of the flood is said to be the collapse of a glacier on the Nepal side of the Himalayan mountains.

Phys.org reports that Geomorphologists Kristen Cook and Dan Shugar said initial images from Nepal were obscured by clouds and dust from the debris, so they could only see that part of a glacier had broken off from Langtang Lirung peak, near the border with Tibet. In clearer images from Thursday, they said they could see that the bedrock underneath the glacier had collapsed, taking the massive chunk of ice down with it and sending boulders and ice into the valley.

“It shows the whole area without anything hidden, and we could see that, yes, it looked like there was not only this glacier that had failed, but a much larger chunk of the bedrock of the mountainside itself that had given way,” said Shugar, associate professor at the University of Calgary. “You have this big bedrock failure that took part of the glacier with it.”

The death toll was in the mid 500’s by Friday midday, with 2500 missing or unaccounted for, and 93000 people affected, according to the Red Cross. Rescuers continue the search for at least 2500 people, many of them tourists, from places like India, the US, the UK, Australia and Canada, in areas where dozens of bridges and almost 40km or roads have been destroyed

The UK, the EU, India, the US and the Red Cross have all provided immediate aid or pledges of aid.

There is a fear of a secondary flood, as the flood waters have filled a lake at a site along the Tibet-Nepal border, prompting fears that it could burst its banks. Chinese authorities in Tibet say hundreds of people are missing and three deaths have been recorded there.

Tropical Cyclone SAUDEL in the north-west Pacific, with wind speeds forecast to be up to 210km/h, has been threatening the Northern Mariana Islands, Japan and China since early in the week. 13 million people are in the path of 120km/h winds. As of Friday, it had missed the northern tip of Philippines, and the southern tip of Japan, and was headed towards the coast of mainland China.

Einthoven University of Technology Student Solar Team has successfully completed the first practical tests of the solar ambulance Stella Juva in Kenya. The ambulance generates more solar energy than it consumes during medical use. This demonstrates that Stella Juva can operate independently without relying on an electricity grid or fuel. To test the delivery of health care powered by the sun, the student team drove to several remote field locations in Kenya.

Writing in medicalxpress.com, the Solar Team reports that Stella Juva was developed by 23 students with the aim of making medical care accessible to people in remote areas where reliable infrastructure, electricity and fuel are lacking. In doing so, Solar Team Eindhoven wants to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future while also making a social impact. For its development, the team collaborated with the international health organization Amref Health Africa.

Unlike a traditional ambulance, Stella Juva brings health care directly to people. The solar ambulance generates energy using solar panels on the roof and, while stationary, via extendable panels on the sides of the vehicle. This energy proves sufficient to drive and power medical equipment.

The team tested Stella Juva at various field locations in Kenya around the Narok region. The solar ambulance is approved for use on public roads, meaning it could be deployed on both paved and unpaved roads—the conditions in which the vehicle could ultimately be used. At one point, the team spent six hours traveling on challenging roads to reach a remote field location in Mosiro.

In total, the team covered more than 800 kilometers. Aside from a broken steering rod, which was replaced within half an hour, the vehicle hardly ran into any problems on the challenging route. This demonstrated that the solar ambulance is reliable and performs well under challenging conditions.

Stella Juva is equipped with medical equipment that is urgently needed by health organizations in remote locations, such as an X-ray machine, ultrasound, automated external defibrillator (AED) and cooling equipment for vaccines. During a two-day test with Amref Health Africa, the solar ambulance proved that it could have provided medical care to approximately 200 people.

While stationary, Stella Juva generated far more solar energy than it consumed while using all the medical equipment simultaneously. This showed that the solar ambulance can operate in an energy-independent manner, allowing health care workers to keep using medical equipment at all times.

“It is really great for the team to see the potential of Stella Juva in practice,” says team manager Mathijs van Gerven, “not only to drive sustainably, but also to be able to provide fully independent care. Especially in remote areas where energy is often scarce, this can make all the difference.”

Two interesting apps have been announced for your windows desktop on the Amateur Radio Weekly menu.

The first is “Spothole” for HF enthusiasts, which is an aggregator of amateur radio spots from DX clusters and outdoor activity programmes. It’s free for anyone to use and includes an API that developers can build other applications on. Go to spothole.app, and you will find a live constantly updating list of stations that are currently on the air, their frequency and mode, as well as the type of activity they are engaged in, such as POTA, or WWFF, and also the station that posted the DX. This is very convenient, and easy to use.

The other is DXChrono, which is a free web-based application designed specifically for amateur radio operators, shortwave listeners, and anyone interested in global time visualisation. It provides real-time visualisation of time zones, propagation conditions, and solar activity across the world map.

The application combines accurate time zone calculations with live solar data to help users understand optimal transmission times, greyline propagation, and worldwide communication patterns. For a full local shack display with DX Cluster, N1MM+, satellites, and more, see DXChrono Desktop.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

A report in chroniclejournal.com, written by Darryl Greer says that a caver has been rescued after being trapped vertically underground at the Rat’s Nest Cave in Canmore, Alberta, Canada, in an operation that deployed volunteer-built underground radio technology for the first time. Search and Rescue Alberta says the man became pinned in a tight spot known as the “Psych Squeeze” around 11:30 a.m. local time on Saturday.

The Alberta/BC Cave Rescue team was called in, and hammer drills were used to remove rock, with the caver eased out in a process measured in “inches per hour.” Search and Rescue Alberta says the man was freed around 10 p.m. and he finally emerged from the cave around midnight, after an operation involving 13 cave rescuers, 10 firefighters and two Kananaskis Mountain rescue members.

The rescue group says a cave radio that transmits signals through rock was used in a live operation for the first time. The technology was developed by members of Alberta/BC Cave Rescue, which is part of Search and Rescue Alberta, in response to the difficulty of using traditional communication methods like phones, radios or GPS underground.

“By providing reliable text-based communications from deep inside caves to the surface, or between different locations in a cave, teams can now deploy with equipment that is purpose-built by the rescuers who will use them in the field,” Search and Rescue Alberta says in a news release.

It says the new radios are smaller and lighter than traditional analog cave radios, which use technology that can no longer be repaired.

The rescue team now has a cave radio system using technology known as QDX-M, capable of communicating through more than 500 metres of solid rock, the release says.

“Such units are not currently available commercially at an affordable cost, so the benefits of volunteer design and construction work by cavers with electrical engineering and amateur radio backgrounds has been considerable,” it says.

John Alexander, the CEO of Search and Rescue Alberta, said the Rat’s Nest rescue “is a display of what can be achieved when multiple emergency response agencies come together in collaboration, and of the incredible innovation and initiative taken by our 1,500 volunteer search and rescue professionals who defy odds and overcome barriers every day, so others may live.”

Thanks to Darryl Greer for his article.

Popular Mechanics is reporting this week that few things are more dangerous to living beings than radioactive material. The ionizing radiation emitted by radionuclides can damage tissue and alter human DNA, so in a way, it’s remarkable just how cavalier Western countries have often been in their choice of methods to dispose of this extremely dangerous waste.

Europe decided to dump more than 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste into the Atlantic Ocean between 1971 and 1982!

For the past two years, scientists from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have used resources from the French Oceanographic Fleet to survey the North Atlantic nuclear waste disposal site. They’ve discovered thousands of barrels lying on the seafloor covered in sea sponges, anemones, and crabs. In 2025, the CNRS canvassed the 14,500-square-kilometre spill site with an autonomous robot capable of diving to a depth of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) and used a multi-beam echo-sounder and synthetic antenna imaging sonar to map huge areas of the seabed. Although the robot mapped only 2 percent of the spill area, it successfully found 3,500 barrels of radioactive waste.

“The barrels alter the environment by providing a hard substrate that becomes colonized, potentially facilitating the transfer of radionuclides to living organisms,” two researchers involved in the project, Javier Escartin and Patrick Chardon wrote in The Conversation. “This is one of the first radio-ecological studies in the deep sea, requiring the implementation and development of new procedures and methodologies ranging from the definition of the sampling strategy to onboard radiation protection.”

While it’s too late to undo the damage inflicted on the environment by previous generations, having a deeper understanding of how these systematic episodes of pollution impacted the world will help future generations avoid making the same mistakes.

Thank you to Popular Mechanics for these excerpts from their article.

The ARRL, writing in their letter of Friday says that Hawaii was bracing for Hurricane Lala last week. The eye of the hurricane skirted Hawaii’s Big Island without making landfall but left heavy wind and rain damage. On Saturday, August 15, and Sunday, August 16, 2026, amateur radio operators throughout the state assisted emergency management agencies during the hurricane’s approach.

Several Big Island locations received over 90cm of rain, with Laupāhoehoe recording more than 1070 mm in just two days. The Nāhuku Lava Tube and Nene Cabin, one of two A-frame vacation cabins located just outside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Volcano, received just over 920 mm of rain. Hurricane-force gusts up to 220km/h were recorded at Mauna Kea’s summit.

National Weather Service (NWS) radar for Saturday, August 16, 2026, at midnight UTC, showed the 80km approach of Hurricane Lala to South Point on the Big Island. South Point is the southernmost location in the United States. The greatest damage occurred at Naalehu in the Big Island district of Kau, where the runoff from the torrential rains on Saturday night devastated the community. Roads were blocked and damaged, which isolated and impeded response.

Torsten ZS1ABT reports that HAMNET assisted in event communications on Sunday 16 August (2026) at the Kogelberg Biosphere Trail Series Super League trail run.

ZS1ABT set up BASE radio at the Kleinmond Day Camp before sun rise, and was later joined by ZS1GA, ZS1SWN and ZS1HR.

ZS1CBY deployed west above the Palmiet lagoon with his 4×4 vehicle to provide communications relay to stations beyond line of sight of BASE.

106 runners completed the 23 km extra-long course, with only one runner dropping out due to injury.

Special thanks go out to the members of the Winelands ARC who cut their time short at the Hangklip lighthouse, as part of the International Lighthouse Weekend, to assist at this event.

Finally, remember that the 26^th August is International Dog Day, so please be extra specially kind to your furbaby on Wednesday!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, sharing my private stash of biltong with my doggie, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.